The Summers Inheritance
by Childe Valancourt
Summary: After tragedy strikes at the heart of Buffy's world, she must make the choice between facing Angelus in the familiar world of Sunnydale, or making a pilgrimage to a mysterious mansion that may hold the key to her identity.
1. Chapter 1

**The Summers Inheritance**

**By Childe Valancourt**

_Prologue: This tale takes a few liberties with the chronology of the Buffyverse, somewhat mixing the second and third season together. Generally, it is set during the end of the second season after Angel has become Angelus and is fraternizing with Spike and Drusilla in the hopes of vanquishing Buffy once and for all. Buffy, still unused to the sudden change that has come over him, has not yet performed the necessary rituals to invalidate the invitation that allows him access to her house. However, the events of the third season in which the Mayor was vanquished and Faith was put into a coma have occurred as well, though they will not become an issue until later on in the tale. Hopefully, my readers will be kind enough to bear with these liberties -- and enjoy the story! _

**Episode One: A Marriage and a Funeral**

_"I want you to wear it." Her mother smiled at her in the mirror over her shoulder. "It was your grandmother's."_

_ Buffy turned, arching her neck while gazing at the reflection in the glass, trying to reconcile the high-collared, Victorian finery of the white gown she was wearing with the girlish face and uncurled blonde hair that fell above the ruffles. She turned to look at her mother and was startled to see the dress of rich velvet brocade that the woman was wearing in lieu of her usually far more casual style._

_ "Mom." Buffy frowned. "You look all Pemberley Hall-ish." _

_ Joyce Summers smiled and stroked her daughter's hair as though not really listening. "Well," she said. "It's my sweetheart's special day, isn't it?"_

_ Buffy was about to ask what this meant, but even as she started to speak, she felt the world around her shimmer and change and then she was walking down an aisle, her mother's hand in hers, and a white veil over her face, obscuring her sight. Organ music drifted all about her and as she passed each of the aisles, she saw heads turn to follow her progress. Some of them were dressed in the waistcoats and bodices of earlier centuries, others in the jerkin and hose of still more archaic eras. Their faces were as motionless as though they were fashioned of wax rather than flesh and blood, but upon all of them wore expressions of either deep dismay or outright hostility. One young woman, her braided hair eerily similar to Buffy's own in appearance, lifted her hands and formed a cross with her two forefingers: a sign to ward evil. _

_ Buffy felt the colour rise to her cheeks and would have angrily spoken, but the organ music swelled all about them and before she realised it, she was standing before the altar. The reverend, a man dressed all in black save for the white collar at his throat, spoke the words that lay written before him in a thick, ebon-bound book, but it was as though he was speaking in a foreign language for she could understand not the slightest syllable of what he said. _

_ "Is this really the Book of Common Prayer?" she blurted out, fortunately in a whisper._

_ The reverend's gaunt, haggard face never changed as he slowly lowered the volume – lowered it so that she could see the black-lettered script within and see that the lettering was English but that every letter was printed backwards so that it seemed as though she was viewing the page through a mirror. He resumed reading in that peculiar, distorted tongue and in spite of the glowing lilies and lulling music that surrounded her, she felt a chill of dread touch her heart._

_ But then a figure to her right caught her eye and, turning, she saw a face that drove away all of the fear and confusion and heard that familiar voice murmur as it drew closer, "This is the way you wanted it, isn't it, Buffy? With your mother standing beside us and your family looking on?"_

_ "My family?" Buffy returned, wrinkling her nose. "They're all strangers to me."_

_ Angel laughed, then took her hand. "So you really want to do this?"_

_ "Of course I do," she said, her eyes now sober. "You know I do." _

_ He lifted her hand, then, and began to slowly slip a golden ring upon her fourth finger. Somehow, in spite of the care with which he did this, the edge of the ring bit into her flesh, causing a rill of blood to leap beneath it. He looked up, then, and his eyes were dancing with gentle laughter as he said, "Well, I know that it's hardly our wedding night yet but…" He lifted her finger to his lips, tasting the blood upon his tongue. Buffy met his eyes, her flesh feeling suddenly cold and yet somehow alive. Somewhere very close to them, she heard the reverend say, "You may kiss the bride."_

_ Her cheeks burned as Angel lifted the veil, his face drawing near to her own. _

_ "I love you," she whispered suddenly, passionately._

_ "I love you too, Buffy," he said. "But you forgot something."_

_ "What?"_

_ "This." _

_ Joyce stepped forward. _

_ "Buffy, what's wrong—" she began, but was cut off by the stake now buried deep within her breast. _

_ Fountains of blood, darkening the altar cloth, staining the book that the minister held – all this filled Buffy's eyes as she gazed as though drunk with her own horror upon what Angel had done. _

_ "Sorry, Buff," he said, and there was a cruel half-smile on his face as he contemplated the Slayer's visage. "But then again, you probably always knew I'd be no good at these sorts of formal functions. Just not the black suit type, I guess." _

* * *

Buffy was choking when she awoke, struggling for air to scream but somehow too buried in the throes of nightmare to do more than gasp and sob into her pillow. Throwing aside the blankets, she climbed out of bed but her legs were shaking far too much for her to stand. Instead, she crouched by the side of her night table, still panting and crying softly at the remembrance of her vision.

The creak of a floorboard somewhere in the hallway outside her room brought her to earth again in a flash. Fumbling in the dark, she felt for her chest filled with stakes and holy water, determined to scare her mother silly but above all to confirm that her mother still lived. Another creak from somewhere outside, this time somehow closer, brought her to her feet – still shaky, but tensed for action. She hadn't been able to find her stakes, but she didn't care. At this point, she just wanted to see her mother's face and hear someone gently tell her that the visions and the night sounds that terrified her now were nothing but the product of taut and anxious nerves. That someone preferably being her mother.

She was surprised when she reached the door to her mother's bedroom and found it closed.

"Mom?" she called. No answer.

"Mom?" she tried again, this time while twisting the doorknob. It refused to turn.

Panic rising, Buffy pounded on the door, all the while screaming her mother's name and all the while receiving no answer. As she did so, however, she felt something brush against her feet and, looking down, saw a folded slip of paper. With shaking hands she picked it up – saw the sketched face of her mother, lost in gentle sleep.

Her next effort was savage with a sort of desperate despair and managed to wrench the bedroom door free of its hinges so that she stumbled inside, her eyes instantly fixing upon the poster bed in which her mother lay. For a moment, her heart was filled with a flood of relief as she saw Joyce's face, eyes closed in slumber. Then she saw the thing, tall and wooden, that grew like a monstrous stump out of her breast and, dizzy with grief and shock, she slumped to the floor and knew no more.

* * *

Rupert Giles, his face drawn and haggard, stepped out of the hospital room as Xander and Willow gathered around him.

"So how is she?" Xander was the first to break the silence.

"She will live – and that in itself is a blessing to be thankful for, I fear," Giles replied. With a weary look he added, "She has suffered a tremendous shock after the death of her mother – as I am sure you can imagine – and it will more than likely take several more days for her to recover. In the meantime – " and here he began to speak in a far lower tone. "—I received a call from Mrs. Summers' solicitor only this morning."

"Solicitor?" Xander repeated.

"That's British-speak for 'lawyer,'" Willow informed him.

"Yes, thank you for that annotation, Willow, though I am frankly at a loss as to why it was even necessary," Giles said with his usual brand of quiet exasperation. "At any rate, the good man informed me of certain stipulations in Mrs. Summers final will which were, quite frankly, entirely as much of a shock to me as her brutal end."

"Wait just a minute," Xander interrupted. "I thought wills were supposed to be private. You're not going to be deported now for being duped by an illegal eagle, are you?"

"Xander," Giles said, a growing edge in his voice. "I hardly think that this is the time for such childish jesting. You see, the man kindly informed me that _I _am now to be the sole guardian of Miss Buffy Summers until she comes of age!"

"_What?_" Both Willow and Xander, after their simultaneous outburst, were preempted in their further questioning by Giles who said, "Yes, that was rather like my own reaction to the news. But that bit was in turn somewhat overshadowed by what he further said. Apparently, Mrs. Summers has left Buffy a manse off the coast of Massachusetts. A rather handsome one as well, if her solicitor is to be believed."

Willow's brow wrinkled. "But Buffy's mother never seemed all that rich. Why would she have only mentioned it now?"

"There, both I – and her solicitor – are quite baffled," Giles began, but paused in mid-sentence when the door to the chamber that he had just left opened and Buffy, though still a bit unsteady, walked out. At sight of the Scooby Gang, she managed a shaky smile and was instantly assaulted with hugs from both Xander and Willow, as well as a paternal pat from Giles.

"Oh, Buffy," Willow drew away, her eyes bright with tears. "I'm so sorry about your mom."

"Yeah – me too," Buffy whispered, her face flushed as though she were only barely managing to keep a flood of tears back herself. She looked around at all of them and then cleared her throat, her voice now somewhat steadier: "Now, what's all this about my mom's will?"

**Coming Soon: **A mysterious house in the mists upon the coast of Massachusetts...the visions of Drusilla...and the mysteries surrounding the Summers family...


	2. Chapter 2

**Episode Two**

A tall woman, her flesh as livid as the moon's pallor and her dark hair clinging like a black widow's web to her cheek, suddenly rose from the dewy grass where she had been lying and, eyes widening, whimpered, "Oh, the stars are all standing still, standing still – someone make stop, make them stop…"

"Be quiet, Dru," Angelus groaned from where he lay under a park bench. "Some people are trying to sleep, you know?"

"Oh ho, smarting from our little beauty sleep, are we?" a lazy, Cockney voice returned. "Pay Angie-boy no heed, pet, and tell us what's troubling you."

"Oh, Spike…" Drusilla shivered in spite of the warmth of the evening air. "I feel her leaving…the _Slayer _leaving."

"Now, Dru…" Spike said, his tone now turning to amused bafflement. "Enlighten us as to how that's a cause for tears and sighs – because as far as I can tell, the Slayer's done nothing but kick her merry way through every pretty nest that we've set up here in Sunnydale, and a bloody good job she's done of it too, ever since Angie came to join us," he added, glancing around at the public park in which they now resided. "No bloody picket fences and rose gardens for us, I can tell you."

"Shhhh…._listen_." Drusilla held one finger to her lips and another pointed to the skies. "Don't you hear it, my love? Like a whistling in the wind, only not through the air but through your veins?"

"That's it," Angelus growled, banging his head on the bottom of the park bench as he attempted to rise. "Dru, if you'd cut it with the prophecies, I'd be much obliged."

"Why, look who's grown all high, mighty, and put off!" Spike mocked. "Mr. Angelus, the distinguished gentleman who landed us all in this pretty spot of mess in the first place. Mr. Angelus, who has to sleep at _night _because he's spent the last _several _nights speeding us from one hell-forsaken place to another because he knows his little bit of fun last Tuesday with Mrs. Summers now has the Slayer hot on his scent and out for his blood – and our blood too. Thanks to Mr. Angelus, I'm now sitting in some kiddie's sodding sandbox in a public park waiting for the Slayer to blow me to dust too because Mr. Angelus couldn't bother himself to remain quiet and low but instead had the bright idea of rubbing out her bloody _mother_."

"Spike, old boy, what can I say?" Angelus returned with half a smile. "I love egging you on almost as much as I enjoy torturing her. Almost."

Spike regarded him icily for a few moments and then broke into a cold smile himself. "You _are _a bloody brute, aren't you?" Drawing out a cigarette and lighting it deliberately, he added, "For a nancy boy, that is. It's about the only reason that I haven't staked you in your sleep already."

Drusilla edged closer to Spike, nestling her head on his shoulder. "The Slayer's voice is growing fainter and fainter, farther and farther…"

"Where is she going, pet?" Spike murmured, humoring her with his curiosity.

"To the eastern sea," she said with a dreamy smile. "To the north. Oh, it seems so cold and so forlorn – take me there, won't you, Spike?"

"Now, hold on a moment, Dru," Spike interrupted, frowning a little at her bizarre train of thought. "What exactly are you talking about the north and the eastern sea? You aren't proposing that we pack our bags for some bloody New England seaboard, are you?"

To his horror, Drusilla nodded with one of her winsome smiles. "The Slayer is going there, Spike, my love – I can feel it. You must kill her for me – and do it there, Spike. It is our only chance."

Angelus jumped in at this point. "She has a point, you know. If the Slayer's left familiar territory, she might be more vulnerable."

Spike regarded him with seething antipathy. "You don't believe a word of what Dru's saying – you only want to trot off to the other side of the country yourself and you think that you can use her to string me along with you. Well, you're bloody well wrong. Off and away with you to Salem and be hung by Cotton Mather's ghost while you're at it, I say – but leave Dru and me out of it."

But Angelus was already rubbing his chin and saying: "Now, the way I figure it, if we catch one of those steamboats leaving L.A. for Boston, we might just make it in time for dear old Buff's arrival. It'll be very romantic, you know – a voyage by sea to historic New England."

"Oh, _yes, yes, yes,_" Drusilla breathed, fairly panting as she gazed into Angelus' eyes. "Let's go now, shall we?" As she and Angelus began to head towards the sidewalk, arm in arm, she called over her shoulder: "Spike, love, won't you come with us? You won't stay here, will you?"

"No," Spike replied through clenched teeth. "I think I'd prefer to keep an eye on Captain Ahab here."


	3. Chapter 3

**Episode Three**

"So this is it?" Xander asked, yawning loudly as he peered through the cabs window at the narrow, lonely street through which they passed.

"Shhh, Xander – Buffy's asleep," Willow whispered.

Giles, whose shoulder was currently operating as the drowsing Slayers pillow, blinked a bit sleepily himself and murmured, "Yes, quite right – though I fear we'll have to awaken her soon anyhow. If this map of Kingsport that I purchased from that ill-favoured looking drug store clerk back in Newburyport can be relied upon, then we are quickly nearing Karswell Street."

"Yep, that's right, sir," the cab driver chimed in. "And here we are."

The taxi slowed beneath the tall shadow of the dark structure that rose before them. "890 Karswell Street," he declared.

"Well, here we are, then." Xander stretched his legs and slowly lifted his eyes towards their long-sought destination. "Home sweet - home?"

Willow, who had followed Xander out, finished his choked-off sentence in a voice that was barely a whisper: "Uh...Giles?"

Giles, who was busy trying to wake Buffy and pay the cabby all at the same time, replied a bit brusquely, "Now, Willow, I am rather occupied at the moment as you can very well see and I would much appreciate it if you...would...be so good as to..." His voice slowly trailed off into silence as he too caught sight of the structure in front of them. Even Buffy, exhausted as she was, could only gaze in silence, as stunned as the rest of them at the mysterious gift that Joyce Summers had bequeathed her.

To say that it was a mansion would have been both an incorrect and insulting understatement. Tall and imposing upon its lonely hilltop eminence, the Sommers Manse could – with its high-windowed gables, bowed cupolas, and worn, ancient chimneys – have been easily named the Sommers Castle, even if one were to discount the many acres of dark forest that surrounded both the eastern and western wings of the vast estate. With these, however, the place seemed almost a medieval fortress. As the cab had long since driven away, the four of them slowly ascended the hillside path that led to the manses gates, whilst Buffy began to fumble for the heavy, iron keys that the solicitor had given her and that her mother had kept in a vault in the Sunnydale Bank.

The antiquity of the place affected them all deeply, but Willow in particular felt that there was something more to the Manse than mere age: something in the haggard austerity of the old stone masonry and the high, aloof walls that emanated both a stern, implacable strength and yet a silent, watchful loneliness as well that softened somewhat the harshness of the former quality. Somehow, in her imaginative mind, the shadows cast by the leaning chimneys seemed not only to throw about them a second, deeper darkness than that imposed by the twilight but also to stretch as though in silent supplication, offering a dark yet kindly invitation. Almost without thinking, she murmured:

_ "Each ivied arch, and pillar lone, pleads haughtily for glories gone!" _

"Will, I don't think this is the time for Shakespeare," Xander muttered, his teeth chattering in the brisk New England wind that was sweeping over all of Kingsport.

Willow gave him a reproachful look. "That's not Shakespeare, that's Lord Byron – he's talking about one of his characters called the Giaour."

"Wait – I thought you were talking about a house."

"I was: that's the part where the narrator compares the Giaour's appearance to an old, crumbling castle. Okay, that sounds weird, but you were awake during English last semester, weren't you?"

Xander gritted his teeth as though confronted by an unpleasant odor and said, "Let's have the quickie Sparks Notes version of brother Byron, shall we?"

Willow sighed, but complied. "Okay, well, the Giaour kills the man who killed his lover and for that, he's cursed."

"Sounds like typical brooding, Byronic badness," Xander said. "Then what?"

"Oh, nothing really," Willow said with a shrug. "Well, that is, he tells his life's story to a monk and then he dies."

"And that's it?" Xander grinned. "Sounds like a fun curse all right."

"Oh." Willow frowned suddenly. "I forgot. That's when the curse kicks in."

"What happens?"

"He becomes a vampire."

"Wow – I really _did _miss that day in English," said Xander, more surprised than he would have preferred to admit at mention of something so close to their usual thoughts. "Guess I'd better brush up on my Byron know-how. In the meantime," he added as they approached the ancient oak of the Manses front doors. "Does anyone besides me fully expect Bela Lugosi to pop up behind one of these bushes as our friendly usher?"

Willow followed his gaze towards the rooks and crows that winged above the shingled gables; the fog-bound Moon that rose with a grey luminance between the two chimneys that had been built for the western wing of the Manse; and the cool wind that whistled through the ancient mortar of the old edifice. However, to his surprise, she shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "I don't think this place is Dracula's style, somehow." As an afterthought, she added, "Maybe the Giaour's, though."

* * *

As they stepped inside the Manse's foyer, they noticed instantly the unusually rich cherry-wood panelling, often carved in certain corners of the ceiling with fanciful images that seemed more similar to the baroque Italian style than the more austere fashion so common to the ancient houses in the historical section of downtown Kingsport, built by the Puritans in the mid 17th-century. Cobwebs now hung from these carvings, drifting like a bride's gauzy veil in the draught, but the polished wood still gleamed, though dully, in the light of the electrical torch that Giles carried.

"There is no electricity here," he observed. "Hardly surprising, as the place hasn't been lived in since the 1840s."

"Fine," Buffy said. "We'll find a fireplace somewhere and sleep together until we can get a hotel reservation somewhere else."

Xander and Giles both concurred with this idea, but Willow said, sounding rather disappointed, "You mean we wont be staying _here_?"

"Will, the place is a dump," Buffy said, casting a hopeless glance around the echoing foyer. "We'd have to spend some major Mr. Clean-time here just to get it in decent enough shape to be a garage for Giles's old rattle-trap!"

"Why, thank you," said Giles.

"But you can't just stop here for one night and then just forget about it!" Willow protested.

"And that's not what were going to do," Buffy said. "Now look, if you guys can find a room with a hearth or whatever you call those things then that would be great. Me and Giles will check and see if we can find kindling, tender, or...something..."

She proceeded to head out of the foyer and down a hallway somewhere to the left and Giles, sighing heavily, followed after her.

Willow and Xander, left alone with Buffys flashlight, exchanged glances that denoted just how much they appreciated being left alone to explore the dark old house by themselves.

"I'm going to remember this," Xander remarked. "The next time I get one of those bright ideas of talking my parents into letting me go and spend the summer knocking around in decrepit old New England towns."

"Well, we'd better get started," Willow said, trying to suppress a shiver. "It's getting colder in here by the second."

"Um, Will, I think that's kind of impossible, considering the fact that it's the exact same temperature in here that it is out there: meaning 24 degrees Farenheit."

"Oh. Well, let's just find a nice, cold, unused fireplace, eh?"

The first few rooms that they explored were merely old pantries or vast drawing rooms with vases and harps covered in old canvasses and burdened with the dust of many centuries. One room, however, surprised them by appearing more furnished than any of the others, containing not only a cracked mirror and chest of drawers but a sunken, canopied bed as well.

"Xander, look." She pointed to the picture of a woman that hung above the hearth. "Do you think she originally lived in this house?"

Xander scanned the portrait with the dim light of his flashlight and shrugged. "Might be. But you know what I'm thinking?" He patted the side of the bed with a heavy yawn. "I'm thinking that our mission's accomplished so, if you don't mind, I think I'll have a bit of a snooze now before you and Buffy steal the bed for the night. Not that I mind – ladies first and all, but..."

With a sigh of luxury, he reclined upon the ancient canopy bed, the mattress of which promptly collapsed beneath his weight. Choking in the rising cloud of sawdust and feathers that surrounded him, Xander managed to mutter, "I think Buffy can have this bed. Uh, we found it like this, okay?"

Willow, who had all the while been studying the portrait over the hearth, said rather vaguely, "Okay...Xander, do you hear something?"

"Other than a crash which I hope to gosh Buffy didn't hear...nope. Wait." He paused and listened intently. "Sounds like chimes?"

Willow nodded and now they both strained their ears for the peculiarly elusive, silvery melody that drifted so eerily within those remote and desolate walls.

"Xander," Willow at last whispered. "I think it's coming from somewhere in that direction."

She pointed to a door that led out of the bedchamber in which they stood.

Xander caught her hand. "We can't just go exploring noises like that without Buffy and Giles."

_"Xander_," Willow smiled, though the curiosity in her eyes was evident. "It's not a scary vampire sound – I think we'll be fine."

"We'll see," Xander muttered.

Willow opened the door that she had pointed to earlier. As she did so, the delicate melody that had so subtly entered their consciousness now seemed to rise in volume so that its presence and the direction from which it emanated were both easily discernible. It was an inexpressibly sweet tune: the wordless, voiceless song of a happiness so utter and pure that it seemed to touch the soul of the listener with a deep sorrow as well as a lightening of the heart, as though the song were somehow conscious itself that the brightness for which it sang must soon give way to the darkness and dust of the centuries that sought to extinguish its fragile beauty. As Xander and Willow paused, breathless, in the doorway at which they stood, they felt an anticipation and awe creep into their hearts as though they themselves sensed the presence of something both wondrous and terrible.

Then, of course, the most horrible thing that could have possibly happened at that moment happened.

Xander's flashlight went out.


End file.
